A coroner's jury is a
body convened to assist a
coroner in an
inquest, that is, in determining the identity of a deceased person and the
cause of death
In law, medicine, and statistics, cause of death is an official determination of the conditions resulting in a human's death, which may be recorded on a death certificate. A cause of death is determined by a medical examiner. In rare cases, an ...
. The laws on its role and function vary by
jurisdiction
Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...
.
United Kingdom
In England and Wales, all inquests were once conducted with a
jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make Question of fact, findings of fact, and render an impartiality, impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty or Judgmen ...
. They acted somewhat like a
grand jury, determining whether a person should be committed to trial in connection to a death. Such a jury was made up of up to twenty-three men, and required the votes of twelve to render a decision. Similar to a grand jury, a coroner's jury merely accused, it did not
convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convicts ...
.
There are no coroners in Scotland, which has its own legal system. The Scottish equivalent of an inquest is a Fatal Accident Inquiry, held where there is a sudden, suspicious, accidental, or unexplained death, which is ordered by a Procurator Fiscal and presided over by a Sheriff without a jury.
Since 1927, coroner's juries have rarely been used in England. Under the
Coroners Act 1988, a jury is only required to be convened in cases where the death occurred in prison, police custody, or in circumstances which may affect public health or safety. The coroner can actually choose to convene a jury in any investigation, but in practice this is rare. The qualifications to sit on a coroner's jury are the same as those to sit on a jury in
Crown Court
The Crown Court is the criminal trial court, court of first instance in England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals of the decisions of magistrates' courts. It is ...
, the
High Court, and the
County Court.
Additionally, a coroner's jury only determines cause of death; its ruling does not commit a person to trial. While grand juries, which did have the power to indict, were abolished in the United Kingdom by 1948 (after being effectively stopped in 1933), coroner's juries retained those powers until the
Criminal Law Act 1977. This change came about after a coroner's jury charged
Lord Lucan in 1975 in the death of Sandra Rivett, his children's nanny.
United States
A coroner's jury deemed
Wyatt Earp,
Doc Holliday, and their
posse guilty in the death of
Frank Stilwell in March 1882.
In the aftermath of the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a coroner's jury found factory owners Isaac Harris and Max Blanck responsible for the death of Mary Herman, a factory operator.
A coroner's jury ruled that the 2018
Hart family crash in
Mendocino County, California
Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza") is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United S ...
was deliberate.
References
External links
Scan of a standard pamphletsent those called to serve on a Corner's Jury in Northern Ireland
Writeup explaining concepts and example cases of a Coroner's Jury
{{Jury
Judiciaries
Criminology
Wills and trusts
Coroner's courts
Juries